Philadelphia Eagles - TeamReport

January 27, 2014|all accounts, he changed the culture of the team | Reuters

NFL Team Report - Philadelphia Eagles - INSIDE SLANT

On the one-year anniversary of being named head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Chip Kelly was named Pro Football Coach of the Year by the Maxwell Football Club on Thursday.

The Maxwell Club, whose president is Ron Jaworski, is Philadelphia-based. Earlier Thursday, Ron Rivera of the Carolina Panthers was named Coach of the Year by the Pro Football Writers of American.

In his first year, Kelly oversaw a quarterback competition, won 10 games and the NFC East title and got his first taste of the NFL playoffs.

Kelly jokingly called his NFL debut only about "58.8 percent" successful. "That's winning 10 games out of 17," he said at his season-ending news conference.

Kelly inherited a team that had gone 4-12 in Andy Reid's final season.

Quarterback Nick Foles' emergence was one of the NFL stories of the year. A third-round pick in 2012, Foles took over the starting job from Michael Vick in October and led the Eagles to a 7-1 record in the second half of the season.

Foles' seven-touchdown game in Oakland tied in NFL record which showed off Kelly's offense.

Almost as impressive was turning the Eagles' defense into a solid unit with an entirely new scheme.

Philadelphia led the NFL in rushing offense (160.4 yards per game) and ranked second only to Denver in total offense (417.3 ypg). Running back LeSean McCoy won his first rushing title with 1,607 yards, and Foles led the NFL in passer rating (119.2) with 27 touchdowns to just two interceptions.

Kelly arrived in Philadelphia from the University of Oregon with an enormous amount of hype and plenty of skeptics. His overall approach had players buying in immediately.

Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians took a subtle jab at Kelly in November, saying the Eagles run a "great college offense," to which Kelly replied with indifference.

"If I believe what other people think, that means I value their opinion more than I value my own," Kelly said at the time. "That's not the case."

All in all, it was certainly an excellent start to Kelly's arrival to the Eagles and the NFL.

--Twenty-seven touchdown passes and two interceptions in 317 pass attempts earned Nick Foles the right to call himself the Philadelphia Eagles' starting quarterback for the next eight months. After that? We'll see.

Eagles coach Chip Kelly said Monday that the plan right now is to have Foles as the team's starting quarterback next season. But he said that doesn't mean Foles won't have competition for the job next summer when training camp opens.

"There's always competition," Kelly said. "And I think you can ask Nick that too. I don't think Nick is going to think he can go out and throw 12 interceptions in a row, which he'll never do, but do that and still be (the starter).

"One of the things we do here is we compete and we have a bunch of guys that compete. Obviously, you've got to have one guy. Right now, Nick is that one guy. But I don't think Nick has ever been afraid of competition. We're always going to try to continue to upgrade at every position, and I think all of our players know that, and I think the guys that are true competitors really embrace that."

Foles' 119.2 passer rating this season was the third highest in league history. But he's played just two seasons and has a total of 17 career starts.

He still has a year left on his rookie contract. So the Eagles don't have to make any kind of long-term decision on Foles until after next season.

With Michael Vick a free agent and not expected to return, there's a pretty good chance the Eagles will select a quarterback in the draft at some point. And there's a good chance it will be a quarterback who can run.

Foles understands the whole concept of NFL standing for Not For Long.

"If you don't play well in this league for a certain amount of games, you probably won't be the starter," he said.

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NFL Team Report - Philadelphia Eagles - NOTES, QUOTES

--The Eagles hired former Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave as their quarterbacks coach. Musgrave, 46, takes over for former Eagles quarterbacks coach Bill Lazor, who left to become the Miami Dolphins' offensive coordinator.

Musgrave spent the previous three seasons with the Vikings, and had previously worked for the Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins, Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and Oakland Raiders. He was an offensive assistant with the Eagles in 1998.

The Eagles also announced two other coaching changes. Mike Dawson was promoted from defensive quality control coach to assistant defensive line coach to replace Erik Chinander, who left to take a job at the University of Oregon. Michael Clay was hired to fill the quality control vacancy left by Dawson.

--Burglars broke into the South Philadelphia home of Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson and stole $250,000 in cash, $125,000 in jewelry and two semi-automatic handguns, according to reports.